Preliminary Exercise 2: Barthes’ Theory Semiotic Analysis of the Hunger Games Catching Fire Table 2

After I was done with the first part of Preliminary Exercise 2, I started to work on the second part. This part required us to watch a media text and look for signs that supports the clip's genre and narrative. I had to document prominent signs in the clip and their denotative and connotative meanings. The media text was a clip from the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is a movie that takes place in an era that the world is overpopulated. This required them to select one person from each district to take place in a survival game, only leaving one person alive. This clip from the Hunger Games took place after there were two survivors for the first time. They were being interviewed with other contestants to take place in the Hunger Games again. While watching this clip I took notes of both audio and visual signs. To do this I had to examine the characters, costumes, acting, setting, color, lighting, sound, etc.

Me and my partner picked three different signs to analyze. The signs were facial expressions, costumes, and an audio sign. Throughout this clip the facial expression of the interviewer helped to elevate the mood. In the beginning he was cheerful and energetic, while getting closer to the end he had a frown on his face to show that the mood was getting tense. In the type of world, fashion was a huge deal. Regular people mainly just wore plain clothing while the higher ups wore big dresses with big hairstyles that looks kind of funny for us. We chose to analyze the main character dress that changed from an elegant, white dress to a thin, dark blue dress with wings representing a mockingbird. Our other sign was an audio sign, which was when they turned off the sound. After the main character said something shocking, they turned off the noise to emphasize the tense mood.

This assignment was very helpful for me to understand that every prop or sound effect has a meaning behind it. This helped me come with more ideas for my movie. For example, I have the option to make the background noise as a creepy sound or completely silent. It also conveys the importance of costumes and makeup as they helped to set the setting and era of the world. Both of these will emphasize the mood. This assignment also helped me to improve in analyzing denotative and connotation meanings, helping me in Component 3.

Thank you for reading!

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